India lashed out at a Pakistan daily on Friday for ”concocting” a story that claimed foreign Secretary S Jaishankar admitted the recent surgical strikes by the Indian Army were a “bluff”, asserting that the news report was baseless.

Strongly reacting to the story in Pakistan’s The News International report titled ‘Indian FS admits surgical strikes was a bluff’, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said it is “completely concocted and baseless”.

The German ambassador, Martin Ney, was in the group of foreign envoys briefed by the foreign secretary on September 29 on the surgical strikes. They have had no further conversation since on this subject, Swarup said.

In its report on Friday, The News International, citing a source, claimed that “the Indian Foreign Secretary has categorically denied and said that there was no ‘surgical strike’ undertaken by Indian Army” in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.